2012 Downtown Seattle Christmas Parade

This morning, shortly after 9am, the Seattle Christmas Parade kicked off. It looked very much like the pictures on this page.

Once the parade ended, the Westlake Carousel officially opened, and I was on a maiden voyage of the 2012 season.

Things got off to a rocky start when, shortly after it started spinning, the carousel began making a clank-clank-clank sound. The ride was stopped to fix the noise, and when it was re-started, the platform began spinning faster than it probably should have.

Fortunately, I survived, but not without the vague feeling that I had cheated death.